Adoption of drones within businesses is poised to take off over the next five years — Business Insider Intelligence estimates that global shipments of enterprise drones will increase at a 66.8% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between 2017 and 2023 to reach 2.4 million.

BI Intelligences

Companies around the globe are working on solutions and services to leverage the technology's capabilities, and that's especially true for delivery companies, which are looking for ways to meet consumer demand for fast and cheap fulfillment services.

In the last week, a major food delivery platform in China received permission to test drone delivery, and an Amazon patent provided some insight on the company's plans for its own drone delivery service:

Ele.me, the Alibaba-owned meal delivery service, received approval from the Chinese government to begin using drones for food delivery along predetermined routes, according to TechNode. There will be 17 routes in total, all located in the Shanghai suburbs. The company has stated that, once users receive an order confirmation, they can expect to get their package within 20 minutes. Although the process isn't completely frictionless — drones drop off the packages in designated areas where they are then physically picked up and delivered by drivers — it's likely only the first iteration of the service. Ele.me expects the new delivery method to cut down costs and pollution, while promoting local economic growth.

Details of Amazon's latest efforts to create an effective, accurate, and convenient drone delivery service can be seen in a recently filed patent, according to The Drive. The focal point of the patent is the interaction between a drone and a customer. The patent states that a drone could potentially communicate with customers "by emitting a warning sound, a pleasant tune, or other audio." Another possibility present in the patent filing is the implementation of projector that could communicate with a customer by projecting information and/or text on a surface.

Drones can be used to cut down the cost of shipments and potentially attract customers. Deutsche Bank expects delivery automation to be the greatest cost-reduction opportunity for e-commerce giant Amazon, lowering the cost of last-mile shipping by 80%.

In addition, there is strong interest among consumers for the delivery method — in the US, 47% of consumers stated they were interested in same-day drone delivery, with this number jumping to 72% among younger millennials aged 18-24, according to a ReportLinker survey. The advantages of offering drone delivery are too large to ignore, which likely means that the development, testing, and full deployment of these types of services will accelerate.

Businesses across various industries and levels of government in the US are utilizing at least a handful of drones. But more importantly, drone users are now realizing a deep return on their investments from the aircraft's ability to help save hours of time and labor.

However, to successfully get a drone program up and running, businesses need to have an idea of what they want the aircraft to do, and the value they hope to create. To that end, companies need to know what their competitors are doing with the aircraft so they can plan their own projects accordingly.

A new report from Business Insider Intelligence, "Drones for the Enterprise," details how unmanned aircraft are disrupting a slew of different industries, including agriculture, construction and mining, insurance, media and telecommunications, and the public sector. We also size the market for global enterprise drone shipments, and pinpoint the features that make drones useful tools within different industries. Lastly, we make predictions for how drone use in these industries will evolve over the next five to 10 years and to what extent their impact will be magnified over this period.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

Since the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) implemented its Part 107 regulations for unmanned aircraft in August 2016, the commercial drone industry in the US has taken off.

Companies across the US have rushed to deploy drones to cut costs, boost operational efficiency, and open up new streams of revenue. Meanwhile, firms elsewhere in the world have taken notice and ramped up their own drone projects.

Unmanned aircraft have the potential to create the greatest business value in the construction, mining, and agriculture industries. The agriculture industry was a relatively early adopter of drones, and today one-third of farmers in the US plan to use at least one drone this year. Meanwhile, drones will have a less significant, yet noticeable, impact on media, telecommunications, and insurance businesses.

Drones will lead these industries to become highly data-driven in the coming years, making the aircraft a must-have for companies to keep pace with their competitors. They will allow businesses to synthesize and analyze trends in their workflows to bolster their operational efficiency and predict problems before they happen.

In full, the report:

Analyzes the development of drone use across five different industries.

Offers a look at how drone use in these industries will evolve over the coming years.

Sizes the market for enterprise drone shipments over a seven-year period, both in the US and abroad.